A laughter of sadness
by SomecallmeMichelle
Summary: For the /r/ fanfiction wildcard challenge, whose word I got was "Laughter" and I averted. Max is severely depressed...based on my time...with the same issue. Angst a plenty.
"Do you feel that sometimes…" - The blond hesitated, the pain clear in his voice. This was something that had been eating at him for far too long. - "Just that sometimes...life is not all that exciting? Or even good?"

The russian stared at the boy like he was crazy, and the blonde boy closed his mouth, lest he say another stupid thing that would upset or annoy the russian. He should have known better, he wasn't a person with difficulties or any of the big worries of the adult life. Sure, he sometimes got like that but it didn't mean...it didn't mean much. He was probably just weak, or stupid, for even bringing it up. What was he hoping to accomplish?

He had figured maybe the russian would know the feeling and could help him but the look he was giving him...the look was one that had accomplished his (seemingly obvious to Max) purpose. Max felt even stupider than before, for even bothering to open his big mouth up.

Kai sighed. He really wasn't the best person for this type of conversation, he had always kept a cold facade, like he had no feelings. That was technically not true, he had feelings, but they weren't very positive. It was better to keep them hidden from the others, and now...now Max was asking him for advice. And not even some advice that he could give freely, and without worries. Kai knew the feeling all too well, but words didn't even begin to describe just how it was passable. It wasn't. He still struggled with that feeling everyday and though he often got motivation in his goals, far fetched as they might seem, it wasn't easy.

So he really couldn't say much to the boy. He figured that the look he was giving it was making him feel worse and he tried to soften the eyes. He pitied the boy, he felt sorry for him, but positive emotions didn't just spring forth from nowhere. Kai knew it all too well.

What could he say? He cared for Max he really did. - And he extended a hand, tentatively, almost afraid to touch the other male. - But he wasn't the right one to deal with the problems of the boy. He touched his shoulder and he tried smiling, reassuringly. Max looked at him and Kai tried to inspire him confidence, though he knew he most likely hadn't succeeded. Kai wasn't used to smiling, and even if he was, there was no use in this. But it was all that he could, he couldn't exactly fight Max's demons, not when he had his own demons to try and fight off.

They stood like that. the taller russian, pale in his magnitude and an uncharacteristic soft look on his face, and the younger american, for what seemed like hours. Max tried to hide the tears that threatened to form in his angel like features. He wasn't sure of why the heck he felt this way, and he was confused, and scared, and a whole lot of other things. If there was one thing that he could do it was feel sorry for himself, and there was no doubt he did He felt sorry for himself and the stupid state of mind his emotions had put him in.

"K..Kai?" - He stammered, the big pit in his stomach and the pressure in the back of his throat almost silencing his speaking voice. The usual chatty boy didn't really feel like talking. He didn't feel like doing much. He hated the darn feeling of having his voice be heard by no one. It seemed as if nobody listened to what he said. He didn't even know why he was pleading, begging Kai to listen, to just hear what he had to say. No one had ever heard. But he had hope, hope they say, is the last thing to die, and Max wasn't yet dead, so he still had the fickle flame of hope in him, even if it almost not seeable over what was a silent scream of agony that overshadowed everything else. Sometimes it manifested itself as some words, some talking, something.

Anyway, Max stammered. Unsure of himself. Would Kai even care? But he had to try, someone had to care right?

"Do you...do you care for the world?" - That was new, but the words left the red face of the boy way before he could stop them. He just didn't feel much, much except the terrible feeling of being crushed by an ice cold nothingness. In a way it was preferable to the overbearing sadness he had felt quite some times, but it was just so vast ...like he was being choked by it. His words definitively were.

It was a cry for help, one that he wasn't sure Kai would pick up on. And if he didn't? Max didn't even dare think of the consequences. That was when he was thinking, it seemed that thinking just hurt him. Sometimes he just allowed himself to lay there and be consumed by the all encompassing darkness.

If Kai was caught off guard by the question he didn't show it. Perhaps he could see just how much Max needed his support then and there, perhaps it was just something that he had thought of himself, though Max doubted it. The fact was that Kai answered quickly and promptly, something he was...well not glad, for gladness was impossible in his current state, but satisfied with. He had this big headache, the fruit of trying to withhold the crying and the weak emotional state he was in. The pain was eating away at him. The pain that felt like nothing. He'd think that if it was nothing then it would at least sedate him, have the decency to do so. But the truth was that it didn't. It just allowed himself to suffer more and more in his pain.

"I do…" - Kai looked dead ahead, though at nothing in particular, contemplating the world, his life, the future, and all those philosophical questions that seemed so meaningless to Max in his current state. - "I used not to...but if I don't try to help the world, and myself, then who will?"

Kai smiled at Max, who just stared through the filter of his mind. It wasn't a pretty sight at all. If even Kai could…

But Kai was strong, Kai had nerves and attitude and a whole lot of other things that Max didn't have, in his opinion. He had tried his very best to always stay happy and chipper, chatty, cheerful. But it had run out. It had been a battle with a clear ending in sight. He couldn't fight his hormones, or whatever the heck put him in that state forever. Max didn't know just what had put him like that and he didn't care he just wanted it to stop.

The first tear came, then the second one, and soon enough he was looking at the heavens, tears falling in his cherubic little face, they gathered at the edge of his eyes and made their way down soaking his shirt and the ground down below. It should have been raining, it really should have, that was how he felt anyway, like everything was grey and dull and lifeless. But instead it was a bright sunny day. In a past life maybe he could have appreciated the beauty of the warm summer colors, and the way the fragrant smells traveled through the soft breeze. But not then, not like that.

Kai felt awkward, he had never been the best at comforting others, he could placate him with some shoulder taps, but he wasn't very eager to hug or even approach the teen. The blonde was such a mess, his eyes with dark bags underneath, his smile faltered, his tears flowing freely, and he was feeling like he had faltered. And perhaps that was selfish of him but he really didn't think he could help and.

Max felt mad at himself for even fathoming the idea of those emotions, and for allowing those feelings to run inside him. He felt, but he didn't really know it, his emptiness just looming and making him struggle. Every day a fight for survival.

Sure Kai might have been able to fight it off, to push it it off his mind, but Max wasn't Kai. It didn't mean he was weaker or worse, he was just more severely affected. And to Max that was the tragedy of it all. He couldn't stop himself. Everytime he tried he just ended up feeling worse and worse.

He had only one thing to say. And it was a plea, a desperate cry for attention, and to get the help he needed.

In between tears, sobbing, and just plain feeling nothing he asked.

"Help me Kai...please...I don't think I can do this anymore."

Kai wasn't so sure of what to do, he felt himself tense up as he thought to what he had to do. He had to make sure the cherub haired teenager would be okay.

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Max had always been the face of laughter, the one to bring the smiles to his team and to make them smile, he had always been the one who tried to get everyone else happy...in a way that had been his way of telling the world. "My name is Max Tate and no one is going to bring me down". - He let out a bitter laugh at that, as he contemplated the state of that. - Even if he couldn't see himself now, he knew how he felt, the darkness, looming over him, removing every feeling he had ever felt, happiness included…that feeling, that one had certainly defeated him.

Kai had been looking for options with him, but they were all either too expensive. - He was weak, too weak to admit those feelings to any other person, even his mother or his father who might care enough to throw him enough money to pay for the therapy sessions or the drugs to make him feel better. Or not good enough. And he was getting frustrated. If he could call it that.

Max remembered the good old days, and sometimes he would laugh, smile and think of how good he had had had it in those times, when the "Whatever", whichever feeling he was suffering from now, hadn't attacked him yet. Those were laughs, sure, but they didn't make him feel better. He thought laughter, was a joyful sound, but not this one, this one had a bitterness that drowned him in it.

The truth was, between the sobs and the laughs of pains, he just wanted to lose himself amidst distractions, whichever or whatever they were. It had seemed to work for Kai. And videogames, or loud music, or whatever, well, if it distracted him for a few hours, if a funny glitch, made him laugh, even if for a couple seconds…

He was not fixing the problem, but he was treating himself, if that made any sense, pathetic as that might have sounded, and while he had asked Kai to help him get better and a part of him wanted to get better...

A bigger part of him just wanted the pain to end. He just wanted to be the jolly glue that held the team together, the one who brought laughter to everyone, he just wanted to laugh honestly again.

Whatever it took.

 **Words (according to Google Docs): 1922,**

 **The challenge gave me a random word, and the random word I got was "Laughter" which, I totally twisted, to be honest, I had most of this one planned and written already, I just needed to rewrite some bits, add some bits, rework the final part, and conclude it, so it had less to do with "I need help" and more with "Bitter laughs". But yeah. For the /r/ fanfiction challenge.**


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